Over 60 precision agriculture startups have been founded each year since 2013. Around 50 percent of the startups founded were from US, Israel and Canada; 38% of the startups founded were in the United States alone. The sector saw peak funding in 2015, when $345M was invested in 70 rounds.
Farm data and analytics companies, which provide actionable insights through predictive analytics, and real-time monitoring and mapping of farms accounted for a majority of funding in the space ($554M). Field Ops companies that leveraging technology to automate or remote control of farming operations accounted for $379M in funding.
With nine investments, Khosla Ventures (The Climate Corporation, Solum) is the most active investor in precision agriculture companies, other notable investors include KPCB (Farmers Edge, Farmer’s Business Network) and Start-Up Chile (Agribots, Event 38). Some of the top investments this year include Farmers Edge, a provider of big data analytics for farmers, which raised a $41M Series C. PrecisionHawk, a supplier of UAV, remote sensing and GIS data solutions raised a $18M Series C.
Tracxn’s report on precision agriculture tracks companies leveraging technologies such as wireless sensors, internet of things, predictive analytics, machine learning, machine vision, image processing, and other techniques in farming, livestock and aquaculture. The report does not focus on companies from East Asia, especially China, Japan, North and South Korea, and excludes companies supporting indoor agriculture, and ERP platforms for farm business management. Catch a preview of the report below.
